H1154 — בֶּסֶר (beser)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H1154
Original: בֶּסֶר
Transliteration: beser (beçer)
Pronunciation: beh'-ser
Part of Speech: Collective masculine noun (n-m)
Root: Unused root meaning "to be sour"
Occurrences: 1 in OT
First Occurrence: Job 15:33 — "He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive."
Hapax Legomenon: YES — appears only once in the entire Bible

Lexicon Definition¶

From an unused root meaning to be sour; an immature grape: — unripe grape.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Count	%
his unripe grape	1	100%

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Job	1	0.09

Sole occurrence is in Job, within a wisdom discourse (Eliphaz's second speech). The word is entirely absent from Torah agricultural legislation, prophetic vineyard imagery, and all other OT literature.

Semantic Categories¶

1. Premature / Unripe Fruit (metaphor for divine judgment)¶

Job 15:33 — "He shall shake off his unripe grape (beser) as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive."

Eliphaz uses beser as a metaphor for the wicked man's works coming to nothing — like a vine that drops its fruit before it ripens. The image emphasizes premature loss: the grape never reaches maturity. Paired with the olive casting off its blossom, the verse describes total agricultural failure as a figure for judgment on the ungodly.

Common Collocations¶

None attested — the word is a hapax legomenon with only one verse of context.

In Job 15:33, the immediate context pairs beser with: - גֶּפֶן (gephen) H1612 — "vine" (the plant that drops the beser) - נִצָּה (nitstsah) H5328 — "flower/blossom" (the olive's parallel loss)

Word Family / Cognates¶

H1155 בֹּסֶר (boser) — "sour grape" (from the same root; 4 occurrences: Isa 18:5, Jer 31:29–30, Eze 18:2). Both words derive from the same unused root meaning "to be sour." H1155 appears in the proverb "the fathers have eaten sour grapes (boser) and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Jer 31:29, Eze 18:2) and in Isaiah's description of a grape ripening from boser stage (Isa 18:5).

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
בֹּסֶר (boser)	H1155	Both describe unripe/sour grapes	H1154 = the unripe grape itself (noun, hapax); H1155 = "sour grape" used in proverbial/prophetic contexts (4x)
עֵנָב (enab)	H6025	Both translated "grape"	H6025 = the generic/ripe grape (19x); H1154 = specifically an immature grape
תִּירוֹשׁ (tirosh)	H8492	Both grape-related	H8492 = must/new wine, fresh grape-juice (38x); H1154 = the unripe fruit itself, not juice. Tirosh is the word used in Isa 65:8 ("the new wine is found in the cluster"), not beser.
בְּאֻשִׁים (beushim)	H891	Both describe non-standard grapes	H891 = "wild grapes" / poison-berries (2x, Isa 5:2, 4); H1154 = unripe (not wild or poisonous)
עָסִיס (asis)	H6071	Both grape-related	H6071 = fresh grape-juice/sweet wine (5x); H1154 = the solid unripe fruit

Semantic Domain¶

[001002008003004] Fruits — alongside H1063 bikkurah (firstfruit), H6025 enab (grape), H93 egoz (nut), H992 botnim (pistachios)

LXX Mapping¶

No LXX alignments found in the database for H1154.